Constructing Sobol' sequences with better two-dimensional projections

Direction numbers for generating Sobol' sequences that satisfy the so-called Property A in up to 1111 dimensions have previously been given in Joe and Kuo [ACM Trans. Math. Software, 29 (2003), pp. 49–57]. However, these Sobol' sequences may have poor two-dimensional projections. Here we provide a new set of direction numbers alleviating this problem. These are obtained by treating Sobol' sequences in d dimensions as (t, d)-sequences and then optimizing the t-values of the two-dimensional projections. Our target dimension is 21201

Component-by-component construction of good intermediate-rank lattice rules

It is known that the generating vector of a rank-1 lattice rule can be constructed component-by-component to achieve strong tractability error bounds in both weighted Korobov spaces and weighted Sobolev spaces. Since the weights for these spaces are nonincreasing, the first few variables are in a sense more important than the rest. We thus propose to copy the points of a rank-1 lattice rule a number of times in the first few dimensions to yield an intermediate-rank lattice rule. We show that the generating vector (and in weighted Sobolev spaces, the shift also) of an intermediate-rank lattice rule can also be constructed component-by-component to achieve strong tractability error bounds. In certain circumstances, these bounds are better than the corresponding bounds for rank-1 lattice rules

Lattice rules with random nn achieve nearly the optimal O(n−α−1/2)\mathcal{O}(n^{-\alpha-1/2}) error independently of the dimension

We analyze a new random algorithm for numerical integration of $d$-variate functions over $[0,1]^d$ from a weighted Sobolev space with dominating mixed smoothness $\alpha\ge 0$ and product weights $1\ge\gamma_1\ge\gamma_2\ge\cdots>0$, where the functions are continuous and periodic when $\alpha>1/2$. The algorithm is based on rank-$1$ lattice rules with a random number of points~$n$. For the case $\alpha>1/2$, we prove that the algorithm achieves almost the optimal order of convergence of $\mathcal{O}(n^{-\alpha-1/2})$, where the implied constant is independent of the dimension~$d$ if the weights satisfy $\sum_{j=1}^\infty \gamma_j^{1/\alpha}<\infty$. The same rate of convergence holds for the more general case $\alpha>0$ by adding a random shift to the lattice rule with random $n$. This shows, in particular, that the exponent of strong tractability in the randomized setting equals $1/(\alpha+1/2)$, if the weights decay fast enough. We obtain a lower bound to indicate that our results are essentially optimal. This paper is a significant advancement over previous related works with respect to the potential for implementation and the independence of error bounds on the problem dimension. Other known algorithms which achieve the optimal error bounds, such as those based on Frolov's method, are very difficult to implement especially in high dimensions. Here we adapt a lesser-known randomization technique introduced by Bakhvalov in 1961. This algorithm is based on rank-$1$ lattice rules which are very easy to implement given the integer generating vectors. A simple probabilistic approach can be used to obtain suitable generating vectors.Comment: 17 page

Multi-level higher order QMC Galerkin discretization for affine parametric operator equations

We develop a convergence analysis of a multi-level algorithm combining higher order quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) quadratures with general Petrov-Galerkin discretizations of countably affine parametric operator equations of elliptic and parabolic type, extending both the multi-level first order analysis in [\emph{F.Y.~Kuo, Ch.~Schwab, and I.H.~Sloan, Multi-level quasi-Monte Carlo finite element methods for a class of elliptic partial differential equations with random coefficient} (in review)] and the single level higher order analysis in [\emph{J.~Dick, F.Y.~Kuo, Q.T.~Le~Gia, D.~Nuyens, and Ch.~Schwab, Higher order QMC Galerkin discretization for parametric operator equations} (in review)]. We cover, in particular, both definite as well as indefinite, strongly elliptic systems of partial differential equations (PDEs) in non-smooth domains, and discuss in detail the impact of higher order derivatives of {\KL} eigenfunctions in the parametrization of random PDE inputs on the convergence results. Based on our \emph{a-priori} error bounds, concrete choices of algorithm parameters are proposed in order to achieve a prescribed accuracy under minimal computational work. Problem classes and sufficient conditions on data are identified where multi-level higher order QMC Petrov-Galerkin algorithms outperform the corresponding single level versions of these algorithms. Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical results

On the expected uniform error of geometric Brownian motion approximated by the L\'evy-Ciesielski construction

It is known that the Brownian bridge or L\'evy-Ciesielski construction of Brownian paths almost surely converges uniformly to the true Brownian path. In the present article the focus is on the error. In particular, we show for geometric Brownian motion that at level $N$, at which there are $d=2^N$ points evaluated on the Brownian path, the expected uniform error has an upper bound of order $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{N/2^N})$, or equivalently, $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{\ln d/d})$. This upper bound matches the known order for the expected uniform error of the standard Brownian motion. We apply the result to an option pricing example